A STUDENT’S HORACE
HORACE.
Quinti Horatii Flacci poemata, novis scholiis et argumentis ab Henrico Stephano illustrata. Eiusdem Henr. Stephani diatribae de hac sua editione Horatii, et variis in eum observationibus.
[Geneva, Henri Estienne, 1574.]
8vo, pp. [xvi], 135, [1, blank], 134, [2, blank], 112, [22], [2, blank]; woodcut printer’s device to title, woodcut initial and headpieces, ruled in pale red; inner margin of title worn and reinforced affecting a few characters, occasional light dampstaining and small marks, but overall a very good copy; bound in contemporary calf, central arabesque lozenge blocked in gilt to boards with the initials ‘I’ and ‘B’ lettered in the centre, edges gilt; rebacked, superficial repairs to leather, endbands lost; interlinear and marginal annotations in a contemporary hand to c. 125 pp. with a 3 pp. manuscript index in the same hand to the final blanks, some underlining, a few marks in red and blue crayon.
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Quinti Horatii Flacci poemata, novis scholiis et argumentis ab Henrico Stephano illustrata. Eiusdem Henr. Stephani diatribae de hac sua editione Horatii, et variis in eum observationibus.
First Henri Estienne edition of the works of Horace, with his marginal scholia and appendices, this copy with annotations by a late sixteenth-century student providing a running commentary on the Odes and Epodes.
The near-contemporary marginalia are written in a rapid cursive, suggesting that they were taken down from lectures. They explain vocabulary as well as mythological, historical, and geographical references within Horace’s text, e.g. a note explains the word ‘coniurata’ in Ode I.15; another clarifies the reference to ‘Antium’ in Ode I.35 (‘Antium est fortunae templum famosissimum …’); a long entry on tripods, with reference to the Iliad, appears beside Ode IV.8; and there are glosses on the Alps, cornucopiae, etc. There are frequent references to other classical writers, in particular to Virgil’s works, as well as to later authors: to Alciato’s Emblemata, Muret’s Variae lectiones, and Erasmus’s Adagia, for example. Our student has also created an index to their own annotations, running A to O on the final blank pages from ‘Acroceraunia’ to ‘de Olympico pulvere’. On one page (p. 85) they appear to have washed one of their own annotations.
USTC 450695; Adams H 925; Renouard, Estienne 142; Schreiber, Estiennes 193.
